Broadband News

Legislation progresses on cost-sharing set out in the Digital Economy Act

The government have set out
secondary legislation (a statutory instrument to introduce law that has
been made possible, in this case, by the Digital Economy Act) to tackle online
copyright infringement which will see the cost-sharing parts of the Digital
Economy Act be debated by both Houses of Parliament.

"The Digital Economy Act sets out to protect our creative economy from
online copyright infringement, which industry estimates costs them £400m a
year.

We are introducing a system of mass notification to warn people about the
unlawfulness of copyright infringement, explain the harm it does and point them
toward legitimate content.

These measures are expected to benefit industry by around £200m a year and
as rights holders will be the main beneficiaries, we believe our decision on
costs is fair to everyone."

There will hopefully be scope for a proper debate on this, following how the
previous Labour government pushed the Digital Economy Act through parliament at
the last minute in the 'wash-up'. It is worth remembering that TalkTalk and BT
have been granted a Judicial Review by the High Court of the Digital Economy
Act after they raised four key points that they felt the DEA was incompatible
with existing or EU laws. This could lead to a shake up of the DEA, although it
is unlikely that the whole thing would be redacted.

Comments

So much for scrapping the DEA...

MP's only listen to their wallet, not whispers.

DEA has just legalised speculative invoicing and provided a targeting system.

otester

over 6 years ago

hah so the the proposed boost is 200m a year for the creative industry, since the isp's are to foot 25% of the bill does that mean they stand to gain 50m a year? I think not and its no wonder guys like revk at aaisp are angry about this.